Tidal (king)

In the Old Testament, Tidal is a king of Goyim. In the Book of Genesis (14:1), he is described as one of the four kings who fought Abraham in the Battle of Siddim.

Modern scholars have attempted to identify the original context of the story and potential historical correspondents. It has been speculated that the name Tidal is a Hebrew rendering of Tudhaliya, the name of several Hittite and Neo-Hittite kings. The name continued as "Tudal" down to the Neo-Hittite period. Stephanie Dalley argues that Tidal should be identified as the military leader ‘Tudhaliya the chief cupbearer’ mentioned on a clay tablet from the pre-Hittite Assyrian colony at Kanesh. Alternatively, Gard Granerød regards Tidal as literary figure rather than a historical one. According to him, the name Tidal could be originated from a foreign story that Jewish people learned from the foreign diaspora community, which included Elamites and many other foreigners, as mentioned in Ezra 4.

The kingdom of Goyim has not been identified, though modern scholars have speculated that it may refer to Hittites, Hurrians and other groups in central Anatolia. The Genesis Apocryphon (col. 21) places it in Mesopotamia. In Biblical Hebrew, the word is generally translated as "nations" or "peoples", and does not appear to refer to a particular kingdom except in Genesis.